


Missing pieces

by toddykun



Category: Darkwing Duck (Cartoon 1991), DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Dorks in Love, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Feels, M/M, Multiverse, Universe Reincarnation AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-11 00:53:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19521007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toddykun/pseuds/toddykun
Summary: The feeling that something was missing grew and grew every day, and the two pieces lost from the puzzle of his life were almost impossible to find. Then, he met Launchpad McQuack and Gosalyn Waddlemeyer and the puzzle started to make sense.





	Missing pieces

**Author's Note:**

> you can listen to [fire and the flood by vance joy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKmWd8DPrEc) while reading this since i did use it to write it
> 
> [read this on tumblr instead! (and rb it pls)](https://toddydoes.tumblr.com/post/186074531358/missing-pieces-drake-mallardlaunchpad-mcquack)

There was this dream that Drake had from time to time.

It always started the same way, he would step into a room, its floor, roof, and walls white to the point that it was hard to distinguish between them, but the really interesting part of it was the disorganized puzzle pieces in the middle of it.

Drake, always up for the challenge and the mystery, would walk and sit down in front of the disaster, immediately putting hands to work and resolving the puzzle as fast as he could. Every time he had the dream, he was even faster than the last time and he would feel extremely proud but at the same time impertinently frustrated. Because it didn’t matter how fast or competent he was at resolving it, there always seemed to be two pieces lost.

He would walk around the room (crashing against the walls more than once thanks to the unsettling amount of white around him) and try to look around for them but he never found anything. He would try to resolve the puzzle differently, flip over other pieces, try to see the puzzle from a different angle, but it didn’t matter what he did, the two pieces seemed to be just as lost as before and the puzzle picture just as blank.

He would wake up from the dream mad and unsatisfied like he failed to see something extremely important. He would get up to his lonely and too little apartment, feeling even more disappointed in his life and talking about how the dream made no sense, but as always, there was no one to heard him out and Drake would be left feeling even more empty and unfulfilled with everything around him.

But he had to get back up, he had an audition that day, he couldn’t blow it out.

So, he forgot about the dream, about the two pieces that were lost and about the loneliness of his apartment.

And he got the part of Darkwing Duck in the new movie, just like he wanted. All the fulfillment seemed to wash away every one of his complaints about his life, every little unsatisfactory moment seemed to be just a great piece that had pushed him for that reward. The validation of everything he had been working for his entire life filling him with a sense of purpose and finality.

But he still felt like he had lost something and he couldn’t remember why that bothered him so much, especially now that he didn’t live in that can-sized apartment; that he had made a scene in Starducks and he had quitted; that he was playing his idol in a movie, that while not perfect (like, at all), was going to be viewed by people who could get inspired just like he was. He was Darkwing Duck! (Or at least, he was playing him on a movie).

Drake thought all of this sprawled out in the couch he now used as a bed, the night before Mr. Starling’s sign-up, his nerves going erratic through his body and every line he was sure to tell to the man that had shaped his entire life running through his mind at 200 km/h. He had a hard time falling asleep on the couch of his trailer at the set, but when he finally did, he felt secure that everything was going to be alright the next day.

He had the puzzle dream that night after completely forgetting about it for months.

Not a second in the dream and he was already groaning, already tired even if he had not moved a muscle yet. When he looked to where the puzzle should be, he blinked surprised. It was already complete, the two pieces were lost as always but there was something different about it. Drake walked quickly, sitting down in front of it and realizing with bold surprise what it was. The picture, he could see it.

Drake closed his eyes harder and then opened them again. The image was still there and he couldn’t believe it. It was him in the middle, he looked quite different, maybe a little older, a little more tired, but he felt like it was him. There were two other people at his sides, two empty spots where there should be their faces. Drake forced himself to breathe, trying to memorize every tiny detail of the two other bodies of the puzzles. He didn’t know why, but he felt compelled to look for them outside of the dream. Some irrational, scared part of his brain picking at his anxiety and lonely heart that wanted something he didn’t know about.

Tall, barrel chest, aviator jacket, white feathers. Tiny, purple shirt, hockey gear, soft yellow feathers.

He touched the empty spots of the puzzle and before he knew it, tears streamed down his face. He felt so utterly, terribly alone.

_Where? Where are they?_

When he woke up, he had forgotten all about those people, but the inescapable feeling of crippling loneliness was still attached to his heart. Drake blinked away the few tears that tried to escape, he didn’t know why he cried. It was just a dream. An obnoxious and strangely familiar dream but a dream nonetheless. He felt empty.

But he had to get back up, he had to meet Jim Starling at the sign-up and tell him how much he admired him, he couldn’t blow it out.

And he blew it up. _Spectacularly._

Not in a good sense.

But it took a hand bigger than his shoulder and a soft and understanding voice to make him forget how terrible that day had been.

“Are you alright?”

It felt like a stupid question after all that happened, but for Drake it sounded like an offering, a shoulder to lean on. He poured his heart to Launchpad and Launchpad only, if he had not thought Drake was insane at the sign-up with his freaking out he wouldn’t think he was now, or at least he hoped that.

Launchpad didn’t, of course. Because his kindness seemed to know no limits. He offered him a place to crash, a hand to get up, and a shoulder to lean on. He supported Drake and helped him until he was back on his feet again, with a new apartment and a new life, and Drake, that had been so accustomed to just get up on his own without no support whatsoever for forever, felt too selfish for this, felt like he was clinging too hard, like he didn’t deserve it.

So, he questioned, he pushed and felt too egotistical when his insides started to growl like demons every time Launchpad had to go out of his apartment and drive Mr. McMiser to who knows where. It was the reminder that Launchpad had other life, some other people he cared about, and he wasn’t Drake’s. _He wasn’t._ It didn’t stop the empty place in his heart from growing bigger and green, either way.

 _What could McMoneyBags offer that he couldn’t?_ He would think bitterly, alone in his new apartment after Launchpad had to go to attend some McDuck’s matter, and the logical, the actual reasonable part of his brain that knew how stupid he was acting would answer: _a secure job, a family, stability_.

Could Drake offer any of those things?

So, Drake stayed silent. Even when it felt so wrong to do so. Even when he went on patrol and knew every little place where having Launchpad by his side would have made everything so much easier, so much fun and better. Even when his heart was left yearning every time they caught themselves staring at each other with _that_ feeling they couldn’t address yet, even when Launchpad intertwined his fingers with Drake’s own and he felt like he was about to explode from happiness.

But he couldn’t stop Launchpad from saying something, when he touched his cheek tenderly, frowning at all the scratches, broken ribs and pain he looked in Drake.

“It’s not—.” _It’s not necessary, please stay where you are. I don’t know how_ not _to be alone anymore. I don’t know if you are what is missing._

“Drake,” he stayed quiet, Launchpad sounded so serious and firm, and yet he was still tender and soft, “you need me more. I’ll stay.”

And with that, the ugly green monster that was growing in that space in his chest calmed down, doubling down his size and mewling happily at some unknown feeling that was growing instead.

Like Launchpad promised, he stayed.

He stayed one night and then, the weekend. _Then_ , for an entire week, _and then_ , it was a month.

Before any of them could know what they were doing, Launchpad’s few belongings were dispersed around _their_ apartment like they had always been there. They got a bigger bed, there were two toothbrushes instead of one in the bathroom, Drake would sometimes take _—in a sleep-deprived state thanks to patrol—_ a t-shirt that was definitely not his and would observe later that morning how Launchpad fainted at the fact, and Launchpad would sometimes grab things that were too high for Drake and kiss the top of his head and Drake would deny his flustered cheeks.

They moved around each other with a strange familiarity like it was supposed to be like that from the start. That empty space in Drake’s chest was, slowly but surely, growing pink and soft instead.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he confessed one night where the sheets felt too hot and their door was closed to everybody except them. Launchpad smiled with a simple understanding and kissed his shoulder, then his neck and his forehead. He grabbed his hand and he kissed it too, while the other intertwined their fingers together. Drake felt his heart rising.

“I’m here to stay, remember? We’ll figure it out.”

For Drake, it was like something finally clicked into place.

That night, the puzzle dream came back and, from the start, it felt completely different.

For one, Launchpad was there.

“Hey, DW!”

“Launchpad!?”

He looked quite different, with those weird pants and that aviator hat. His smile was just as dorky as ever though, and at least that calmed Drake’s heart a bit. He looked everywhere around the room, it was just the two of them, and the puzzle just behind Launchpad.

“I’m glad you found me!”

“I-I did?” Drake replied confused. Launchpad simply laughed heartedly and nodded with naked happiness. Before Drake could register it, two strong arms tucked him in this man’s embrace.

“I missed ya, DW,” Launchpad whispered into his hair, Drake felt a blush running down his neck, his hands shyly against this Launchpad’s chest and feeling too confused to reply. Until he moved to rest his head on Drake’s shoulder, and Drake felt his shirt wet and tiny shivers against his form.

“LP,” he whispered back with affection. He had no idea where the nickname came from. It had never occurred to him to call Launchpad like that but it felt…so right. Just like how he felt with him these past few months.

This Launchpad finally let him go, his eyes still a little glazed but with a smile of the size of his heart. Drake addressed how he had dressed again and he couldn’t stop himself from saying: “You look kinda funny.”

Launchpad furrowed his brow and moved his head to the side for a moment. “Gee, DW, but I look like—,” then he interrupted himself with an understanding laugh, “Ah! Duh, of course, I almost forgot this is another…”

_Another? Another what?_

Drake was about to ask, but it seemed that this was not this Launchpad’s plan. He grabbed Drake’s hand and put something in it, then he closed it and kissed his fist, making Drake blush for the amount of adoration he seemed to pour in the action.

“I adore ya, you know that, right?”

“I-,” Drake didn’t how to respond to that, his heart hammered against his chest and he felt too confused by it all. What was going on with this Launchpad? Why did he look different? Why did he say _that_?

He smiled at Drake, thoughtful. “It’s okay. You will understand it soon enough. See ya when you wake up, yeah?” Drake could only nod, his brow slightly furrowed and his blushed feathers a little agitated. He almost jumped when he felt a soft kiss to his cheek, but when he turned around to ask him what he meant by that exactly, Launchpad was gone.

He opened his hand and then opened his eyes wide and clear. It was one of the lost pieces.

He almost fell flat in his face in his attempt to run and sit in front of the puzzle. He put the piece where it belonged. And he should be surprised, he should be confused, but all he felt was euphoria when he saw Launchpad’s face staring at him from the picture.

He woke up too happy to describe it with words, he didn’t even know why he was so blissful but he knew he wanted to kiss Launchpad’s face right at that moment and so he did, waking his partner up in a sea of pecks and kisses that left them for too long on their bed just like the night before.

Later, that same day, he called LP to _his_ Launchpad for the first time and he, predictably, fainted on Drake with a smile on his face. Drake, accepting that this was his life now, rolled his eyes affectionately and with a kiss to his cheek, simply rolled Launchpad off of him.

He didn’t have the dream for a while but Drake, for the first time in a long while, felt full and too happy to care about the other piece missing off the dream.

Until the night Gosalyn Waddlemeyer fell asleep on the bed he kept in their hideout, her infinite energy refusing to go down. A little tiny bit of Drake that he didn’t know he had in him hoped she could stay there forever, with her mischievous smile and her unconquerable spirit, but the rational, the scared, the anxious part of him that doubted every step he made knew it was a ridiculous thought, that Darkwing Duck was too dangerous to keep safe a little girl in his life. That was not supposed to be.

But he remembered, looking at Launchpad’s enormously patience smile at the other side of the bed where Gos kept rambling about something to him, that Darkwing Duck wasn’t supposed to have a partner either.

She convinced Launchpad _and him_ to sing her a lullaby, or at least she used some type of reverse psychology to convince him because he didn’t do lullabies and he didn’t know how he accepted. They fumbled at first, with Launchpad playing with the lyrics and making Gosalyn snort and laugh instead of making her sleepy. Drake tried next and for some reason, the lyrics of a song he didn’t know at all flowed out of his beak as naturally as breathing. Gos exhaled, delighted at the new lyrics, and looked at Launchpad until he followed suit and repeated Drake’s lyrics with him.

They kept like that until she was completely asleep, even snoring, her little frame looking rather fragile right there in the bed, in opposite to her stronger nature while she was awake. Drake felt compelled to tuck her in further, accommodating the blanket over her. It wasn’t until he realized Launchpad was looking at him rather heavily that he took into account that he had been doing the same with Gosalyn.

“What?” he asked, just a little bit self-conscious. Had Launchpad felt, just like he did, that those lyrics had come too naturally to him to be normal? Or did his voice broke at some point and he didn’t notice?

“I just love your voice, didn’t know ya were a singer, DW,” Launchpad confessed quietly with an adoring smile, and Drake would have refuted the singer thing if his hand had not come reaching until it was covering Drake’s completely over the bed. He remembered something.

_I adore ya, you know that, right?_

_Oh,_ he understood now. _The missing piece._

Drake smiled and leaned over the bed until he could give Launchpad a peck, and then a kiss just a little bit longer that left them both breathless. He sat down again on his side of the bed, his fingers intertwining with Launchpad’s nicely, fitting just right. Launchpad didn’t wait long to follow Gosalyn, his frame raising and falling with his breathing, his fingers firmly attached to Drake’s own and with a smile on his face that only made Drake’s heartbeat spike up a little.

Drake, tired as he was, couldn’t sleep at that moment and he resumed his staring at the little duckling in his bed. A pang of loneliness hit him, and he stopped smiling. It was the same type he felt the first time he realized Launchpad couldn’t stay with him. The smile didn’t come back, but the loneliness, the unavoidable feeling that something was missing did. He couldn’t sleep then.

And he only did when the hospital’s morphine hit him hard enough to sleep for three days straight. When he woke up, scared and asking for Gosalyn like some kind of maniac that was about run out of the hospital and take his IV out, Launchpad was there to hold his hand and calm him down.

 _She is safe_ , he informed. _She was a little sad though_ , he commented. _When you get better we can go visit her_ , he promised. _Don’t scare me like that again please_ , he asked, more shyly than the others, more scared.

Drake was restless for all the time that it took the hospital to release him. He had dreamless nights of sleep for that time, at least. If he had the puzzle dream and Gosalyn appeared in them, he didn’t know how he would handle it.

When he finally stepped into their apartment, the first thing he _thought_ he saw was the ghost of Gosalyn, running around the living room freely and happy, and that was the last straw. He turned around before Launchpad could close the door and he said with the firmest voice he could muster:

“We have to adopt her. _Now_.”

And Launchpad, beautiful, kindhearted Launchpad grabbed him by his good hand and got out of the apartment in less than a heartbeat, driving them so fast around the city that Drake almost, _almost_ complained, if he had not been completely nervous about something bigger, maybe he would have.

They stepped out of the car fast (Drake would have fallen flat on his face if Launchpad had not been there), and from the other side of the fence of the orphanage, Gosalyn sat down on the grass, the quietest and still Drake had seen her while being awake. And maybe their stares were too heavy, because she turned around with doubt and then, her eyes widened when she addressed Launchpad, _and then_ a smile bigger than her face appeared when she addressed Drake. She _squealed_ and ran to the building, and Drake almost squealed too, being dragged by the hand by a thrilled Launchpad to the building.

_They were doing this._

It took a while, more paperwork that they would have liked, with Drake and Gosalyn vibrating with unhinged twin energies and Launchpad about to just drive himself against a wall, but at the moment the old lady asked whose surname Gosalyn was getting and in a too enthusiastic and anxious mood they both answered _“yes!”_ , making Gosalyn giggle and the old lady show them what she had written instead, Drake knew that this time, for real, everything was going to be alright.

Gosalyn Mallard-McQuack was going home.

 _Maybe it was because he was waiting for it this time_ , he thought while looking with naked adoration at the duckling that had crawled between Launchpad and him in the middle of the night, that the puzzle dream didn’t appear until a month later of Gosalyn’s adoption, when he had forgotten about it yet again.

“Took you long enough, dad!” the even younger and quite different Gosalyn complained in the dream.

“I’m sorry, Gos.” He had no idea why he was apologizing, but he was too tired of fighting against that dream. He would accept whatever it threw at him.

The mild annoyance seemed to disappear with that and in the next second, Gosalyn was running towards him, Drake prepared and caught her mid-jump, hugging her immediately.

“I missed ya, dad,” Drake only hugged her tighter as a response, her little frame tucked perfectly in his arms. He whispered _“I missed you too, sweetheart”_ back, with too much familiarity to be his voice but he didn’t overthink it. After a moment, she separated enough to look him in the eye. “I thought you would never going to find us!”

“Oh, come on, dear. You know I always come through.” She simply rolled her eyes and giggled in response.

“I know! It’s just, it seemed like you were already here, before us, ya know?” and that made Drake frown, what did she mean by that? “But I’m glad you found us in this universe too, I was getting a little bored, ya know?”

_Oh. What? Universe?_

“And we both don’t want you to get bored, right?” Gosalyn shook her head, still giggling.

“It surprised me when you found Launchdad first, though! It was weird, pops said that he thought he found you years ago, that you were a famous actor of all things but it made no sense! But you are Darkwing Duck here too, I dunno what he was talking about—”

“Well, I was—.”

“Keen gear! And then he said you looked older! But here you look younger. I don’t get it, dad, this universe business is so confusing.”

“Oh, tell me about it.” Especially when he had no idea what she was talking about. She then jumped down and took his hand.

“Here, I’m supposed to give you this,” and she put something in his hand, Drake didn’t have to see it to know what it was. She played with his closed hand, shyly and a little flustered. “Ya know, I love ya, dad.”

“I love you too, honey,” he answered almost automatically.

“I will see ya when you wake up.” And with that, it only took Drake blinking once for her to disappear.

He opened his fist and smiled at the sight.

He had to admit, that putting the last piece to complete the puzzle was leaving him too nervous. More than the Darkwing Duck’s audition, than Jim’s sign-up, than his first kiss with Launchpad. His chest raised and went down, and with that, Drake dared to put the last piece in its space. It fitted perfectly.

There were no more empty spaces.

He couldn’t help the silly smile that grew up in his face at seeing two red high pigtails in the puzzle, a smile too enthusiastic to describe with words and the feeling that everything was coming to an end.

“Took you long enough, other me.”

His hand immediately went to his throat, panicking, but those words had not come from him. It had been his voice but it had not been _him_. He almost fell on his butt, when he looked up and a grouchy, definitely older Drake Mallard in a sweater vest looked at him from the other side of the puzzle, his legs and arms crossed and a sarcastic smile on his face.

Drake, the young that just married and just now had a daughter, could only blink.

“What? Were you not expecting me? Maybe the correct one was the other, after all.”

“No,” and he felt less surprised than he thought of what was happening, “I was just impressed, Gosalyn said the same thing.”

That seemed to stop the sarcastic smile to give a pass to a more honest and proud one, his arms uncrossed and he looked at Drake with less aggressiveness than before. “Of course, she is _my_ daughter.”

“She is _my_ daughter now, actually.”

“Oh, yeah, rub it out, why don’t you?” Drake laughed at that, relaxing after all that had been happening lately. The emptiness, the loneliness, the feeling of inadequacy, everything seemed to come back in memory and he had to ask because he didn’t understand completely yet.

“Why? And how?” and he realized that sounded too vague and not what he wanted to know at all, he said instead: “Who is the other one?”

The older Drake seemed to paralyze. Bingo.

After three seconds of complete silence, he seemed to recollect himself and answered. “You already met him. I didn’t know he would turn out like that, I didn’t know I had that in me. His name is different, but I know he’s me too. Some parts of me, at least. The part I was scared to address, the one Negaduck—” _Who?_ “Well, you fought him, remember?”

“Jim?” The older one nodded with a sense of finality. Drake felt all the air of his lungs being sucked, guiltiness and fear clawing at his heart. _Was that why he—?_ “Why me?”

The other simply shrugged. “You changed your name to Drake Mallard, you tell me. Jim never did it, he continued being Jim and he never changed that, it may be a sign.”

“Did you change your name too?”

The older Drake smiled, cryptic if nothing else but he didn’t answer.

“Just, take care of them, would you?”

Knowing that was the only answer he was going to get, Drake finally answered with confidence: “Like I would do anything else.”

That made his other-self laugh, he calmed down after a moment and looked at him rather serious. “Be careful, with the other one.” Drake nodded with confusion, slightly frowning at the implication and the older one just sighed. He didn’t know yet. “I’ll see you when you wake up.”

When he woke up, he had forgotten everything, absolutely everything about the dreams but the feeling of actualization, the feeling of being content, of finally being home stayed. He turned around to see Gosalyn sleeping on Launchpad’s chest, going up and down with his breathing and he saw Launchpad with his beak slightly open and softly snoring, his hair a complete mess. That space was not empty anymore, and Drake even doubted it existed in the first place since he couldn’t remember a moment when his life was meant to be lonely or missing something.

Everything was alright.

It was a new day.

It was a new universe.

**Author's Note:**

> i had this idea when the episode aired but since i was in a pretty rough writer's block i couldn't write it UNTIL yesterday, when my hand literally just started to move for itself and typed all of this lmao
> 
> i literally got out of my writer's block for drakepad, huh? that's just what happened, right?
> 
> come bother me if u want at my [tumblr](http://toddydoes.tumblr.com/)


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